You can thank Lars for coming up with a great topic for this weekly assignment. During a conversation about our “Abstract” assignment, Lars mentioned that his inspiration came from Salvador Dali's "surrealists" works. This was an "ah ha!" moment for me. I now better appreciate the surprises and non-sequiturs in some of Lars' images. I was already thinking about "Surprise" as a topic, and decided instead that "Surrealism" would be a fun assignment.
Surrealist art is dedicated to the expression of the psyche, free of the restrictive control of reason and free of convention. Surrealist works feature the element of surprise, unexpected juxtapositions and non sequitur. Non Sequitur is Latin for "it does not follow," and this technique is often used to precipitate a questioning of the status quo.
The use of the non sequitur in surrealist work can be understood if you recognize that “non sequitur” is the converse of cliché. The genesis of the Surrealism movement in Paris in the 1920s was an anti-establishment rejection of the “logic” of the day. Surrealists believed that “excessive rational thought” had brought about the horrors of the World War, and aimed to revolutionize human experience, including its personal, cultural, social, and political aspects, by freeing people from what they saw as false rationality, and restrictive customs and structures.
Your assignment for the week of 20 – 26 April 2009 is “Surrealism.” Your images should include an element of surprise, an unexpected juxtaposition, or a non sequitur in order to provoke the viewer to question the status quo. Have fun!
Please upload your images to the “Surrealism” album under the “Weekly Assignment” category in the Gallery no later than midnight Mountain Time (GMT – 0:700) on Sunday, 26 April 2009.
Beats MePhotographed by Lars
